Smart Dust sensor networks - consisting of cubic millimeter scale sensor
nodes capable of limited computation, sensing, and passive optical
communication with a base station - are envisioned to fulfill complex large
scale monitoring tasks in a wide variety of application areas. In many
potential Smart Dust applications such as object detection and tracking,
fine-grained node localization plays a key role. However, due to the unique
characteristics of Smart Dust, traditional localization systems cannot be
used. In this paper we present and analyse the Lighthouse location systems, a
novel laser-based location system for Smart Dust, which allows tiny dust nodes
to autonomously estimate their location with high accuracy without additional
infrastructure components besides a modified base station device. Using an
early 2D prototype of the system, node locations could be estimated with an
average accuracy of about 2% and an average standard deviation of about 0.7%
of the node's distance to the base station.